A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to fiber optics, and more particularly to optical fibers fused to a rigid support material and fiber-optic apparatus formed therefrom.
B. Description of the Prior Art
In the field of fiber-optic systems, a major difficulty arises from the fact that optical fibers are relatively fragile structures which may be easily broken when subjected to stress. It has long been recognized by those skilled in the art that it would be highly desirable to rigidly support an optical fiber in order that it may be more easily manipulated. A previous solution to this problem has been to provide a rigid support material with a V-shaped groove therethrough in which to place the fiber. Typically, the fiber is maintained in position with an adhesive or rigid cover. This solution has several disadvantages. For example, it is difficult to satisfactorily polish or etch an optical fiber so maintained. Further, the adhesive material may deform with time, thus altering the position of the fiber and possibly affecting the optical transmission characteristics of the fiber in an undesirable manner.
Because satisfactorily rigidly supported fibers have been heretofore unavailable, it frequently has been necessary to assemble fiber-optic devices while the optical fibers are in a relatively fragile unsupported state and then encase the device in a protective housing such as an epoxy-filled housing, see e.g., Sheem and Giallorenzi, 4 Optics Letters, No. 10 (Oct. 1979) page 29; and Bergh, Kotler, and Shaw, 16 Electronics Letters, No. 7 (March 1980) page 260. The lack of availability of rigidly supported fibers capable of being satisfactorily polished or etched increases fabrication costs of many optical devices since the incidence of breakage of the fragile optical fibers is high.